Skip to main content
Main

Salsify, Boiled

Boiled salsify roots served with white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Salsify, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the salsify roots gently to remove the outer peel.

  2. Cut the roots into 4-inch pieces and place them in water mixed with a little lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the butter and lemon juice.

  2. Add the salsify pieces and boil rapidly until tender, about 30 to 40 minutes.

  3. Test with a fork; if it penetrates easily, the salsify is done.

  4. Drain the salsify and serve with a good white sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salsify roots
The main vegetable; it turns tender through boiling and carries the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat note to the cooking liquid.
Lemon juice
Acidity that helps prevent the cut roots from discoloring.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly until tender. Salsify needs a full, rapid boil to soften its fibrous starch evenly. Under-cooking leaves the pieces tough, while the fork test shows when the starch has softened enough to be done.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes